VIP Central

Archive for the 'DDR' Category

We recently published the VIP Newsletter for Apr 2019, containing trending topics, leading solutions, in depth technical articles, videos, webinars, and updates on next generation protocols. In case you missed the latest buzz on Verification IP, you can read it here.

The key features driving future memories are memory density, speed, lower operating voltage, and faster access. DDR5 supports memory density from 8Gb to 64Gb combined with a wide range of data rate from 3200 MT/s to 6400 MT/s. The operating voltage of DDR5 is further reduced from 1.2V of DDR4 to 1.1V.

Synopsys recently announced the fastest, and most power efficient DDR5 and LPDDR5 IP solutions. Industry’s first LPDDR5 controller, PHY, and verification IP solution supports data rates up to 6400 Mbps with up to 40% less area than previous generations. The LPDDR5 IP provides significant area and power savings for mobile and automotive SoCs with its dual-channel memory interface option that shares common circuitry between independent channels. The DesignWare DDR5 IP, operating at up to 4800 Mbps data rates, can interface with multiple DIMMs per channel up to 80 bits wide, delivering the fastest DDR memory interface solution for artificial intelligence (AI) and data center system-on-chips (SoCs). The DDR5 and LPDDR5 controller and PHY seamlessly interoperate via the latest DFI 5.0 interface.

We recently published the VIP Newsletter for Q3 2018, containing trending topics, leading solutions, in depth technical articles, videos, webinars, and updates on next generation protocols. The newsletter covers content on DFI 5.0 for DDR5/LPDDR5, NVMe 1.3, USB 3.2, PCIe 5.0, next generation gaming displays, MIPI CSI-2 v2.1 for Automotive and IoT, and Verdi performance analyzer and protocol debug. In case you missed the latest buzz on Verification IP, you can read it here.

The growth of datacenter, storage, automotive and other emerging market applications is driving the development of next-generation memory technologies – DDR5, LPDDR5. Like their predecessors, the latest memory technologies also use DFI, a standard interface between memory controller and PHY, to reduce the integration cost and increase performance and data throughput efficiency. DFI also has evolved along with the memory technologies, and next generation DFI 5.0 is here to ensure higher performance in the systems using DDR5/LPDDR5. In this blog, we will discuss the new features of DFI 5.0 specification.

New applications like Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous cars, Augmented reality, Embedded vision are driving stricter requirements around memory performance and power efficiency. Memory is central to these systems, that require high bandwidth and speed along with lower power and lower cost. With these emerging market needs, the memory industry started to move from planar (2D) DRAMs to wide I/O or a 3D technology TSVs (Through Silicon Vertical interconnect access) such as HBM (high bandwidth memory). For more insight on HBM, read our blog “Next Generation Memory Technology for Graphics, Networking and HPC.” Low Power DRAM technology, evolved to the fifth-generation(LPDDR5) to deliver significant reduction in power and extremely high bandwidth as compared to LPDDR4. In this blog, we discuss LPDDR5 new features based on our understanding from collaboration with memory vendors and early adopters of Synopsys VIP over last 2 years.

SoC performance is a key competitive advantage in the marketplace, and the choice and configuration of protocol IP and interconnects is geared towards maximizing said performance. A case in point is the use of HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) technology and memory controllers. Currently in its third generation, HBM boasts of high-performance while using lesser power in a substantially smaller form factor than DDR. That said, how do teams ensure that the performance is delivered in the context of their SoC design?

We recently published the VIP Newsletter for Jan 2018, containing trending topics, leading solutions, in depth technical articles, videos, webinars, and updates on next generation protocols. In case you missed the latest buzz on Verification IP, you can read it here.

In this era of revolutionary technologies, memory plays a vital role in any application that requires high-speed processing. High-resolution graphics require high-speed and high-bandwidth graphics memory, resulting in rapid adoption of next generation memory technology High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM). HBM is finding its way into leading-edge graphics, networking, HPC (High Performance Computing), and Artificial Intelligence systems; for example, decoders for a video signal, fully autonomous vehicles, neural network designs, and other advanced applications that demand low power and massive bandwidth. Our previous memory blog – Next generation memory technologies: Ready to take the verification challenges?, discussed several next generation memory technologies across applications. This blog will review the details of HBM, a next generation memory technology for graphics, networking and HPC.

The mobile industry is growing at a very fast pace with its never-ending hunger for data and bandwidth. We have witnessed the change from a dial-pad to touch-screens, from black and white display to QHD 4k display with millions of colors, and memory space from KB to GB, in a very short span of time. The biggest challenge is increasing bandwidth without compromising performance or adding any significant numbers in the power consumption column. The solution to this challenge is the LPDDR or Mobile DDR standard released by JEDEC. There have been several revisions to this standard, the latest being LPDDR4. LPDDR4 provides a data bandwidth of 4266 Mbps, which is almost double that of LPDDR3. It also provides a significant reduction in power consumption compared to LPDDR3. For further insights on LPDDR4 and its predecessors please refer to our previous blog “LPDDR4: What Makes it Faster and Reduces Power Consumption.”

A global team of protocol experts that share their insights and technical expertise in the areas of Automotive, DRAM and Flash Memories, Storage, Display, MIPI, AMBA, Ethernet, PCIe, USB and many other bus and interface protocols. This comprehensive team participates in standards committees and will provide the latest information and updates as it relates to your future design considerations.